VA backlog: 8,000 S.D. claims waiting a year

One vet's story a window into backlogged system

Army veteran Ericka Korb is still waiting for any response on a knee disability claim she filed with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department in May 2012. Korb worked for two years in claims processing at the VA's San Diego Mission Valley campus, shown behind her.
— John Gastaldo / U-T

Army veteran Ericka Korb is still waiting for any response on a knee disability claim she filed with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department in May 2012. Korb worked for two years in claims processing at the VA's San Diego Mission Valley campus, shown behind her.
— John Gastaldo / U-T

Since her knee claim wasn’t decided before the additional injury, she doesn’t know whether she’ll ever be able to prove the initial tear. Her doctors at the VA didn’t take any images, just advised ice, rest and a brace, she said.

“I’m concerned. Am I going to incur a larger fight for anything?” she asked. “It just feels unfair.”

Asked for a comment, San Diego VA officials said Korb’s claim would have been handled by the Los Angeles and then St. Paul, Minn., offices. But her file was accidentally sent to San Diego two weeks ago, so a VA spokesman in St. Paul couldn’t comment until it arrived there.

The irony is that Korb filed her knee claim through the VA’s computer portal, called the Inquiry Routing and Information System, or IRIS.

The system, which can be logged onto from any computer with the Internet, was part of the VA’s effort to enter the computer age. The agency’s old paper files have been the subject of intense criticism.

Under this scrutiny, several senior VA officials have resigned or retired in the past two months. The latest and most highest-ranking was Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, who ran the agency’s day-to-day operations until this week.

Before him, the VA’s chief of staff, chief information officer and chief technology officer all left in March.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, advocates gutting and rebuilding the VA, to make it more like a private corporation in its customer service.

“If we were to just stop what the VA’s doing and say, Time out. We’re going to reorganize, we’re going to restructure, we’re going to fire thousands of people that have not been doing their jobs,” said Hunter, who served as a Marine officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’re going to start from scratch, and we’re going to build the VA like it should be built in the modern era.”

But as a former VA employee, Korb doesn’t want to pin the problem on the claims workers.

“I can relate to the veteran filing the claim,” she said. “I can also relate to the employees who are doing the very best with what they have.”